


Scar Tissue

by Neko_Kururu



Category: DOGS (Manga)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Scars, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 11:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1467883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neko_Kururu/pseuds/Neko_Kururu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Badou can trace his past through his scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scar Tissue

**Author's Note:**

> Fic originally posted April 2009 on my old (now defunct) livejournal.
> 
> Slightly edited for typos, misplaced commas and weird wording.

Badou broke his nose twice in his life. The first time was during one of his early runs as a PI, when he didn’t know the streets as well, when he wasn’t as fast or as clever as now. The men who caught him didn’t seem to care about his young age. After making it out alive, his nose was crooked and Mimi took great pleasure in reminding him of his failure. Six months later, he got caught again; same guys, different reason. The second time fixed it, albeit painfully.  
  
He’s been punched in the face more times than he cares to remember but he hasn’t broken his nose since. He has, however, been collecting other scars.  
  
The most prominent are also the most painful; his hand, his eye...  
  
He has several other scars, less important but no less painful. Reminders of the stupid things he’s done. The largest by far runs down his right thigh and almost reaches his knee; that’s when he was sliding down a roof and a rusty nail carved into him. Another one traces his left shin from the time he tried to roundhouse a man wielding a knife and almost missed. His only consolation from that incident is that the guy ended up with a concussion so bad, he was ‘let go’ from his gang. Three long, thin scars decorate his left bicep, resulting from an encounter with a half-cat bitch who took him by surprise. He escaped with a torn shirt and few more shallow scratches on his back but she dropped down hard with four bullets in the chest.  
  
That’s around the time Badou first met Haine.  
  
He’d like to say it was a pleasant meeting but having a gun pressed against the side of his neck is far from his idea of ‘friendliness’. He’s still not sure why or how he made it out of that one but he’s guessing it was his pathetic appearance; a half-starved, one-eyed runt with blood all over him, most of which was his own.  
  
After that, he saw the young gunner often and eventually formed a sort of invisible and unspoken alliance; just two dogs living off the streets. Haine allowed him around for no other reason than he was bored, and maybe wanted company from someone other than the freaky priest who took care of him (Badou was terrified when he first met him).  
  
As for himself, Badou stuck around because Haine meant safety but, deep down, he was also fascinated by the albino. He’s since grown used to those red eyes framed by snowy white hair but back then, he shivered every time they settled on him. He would nonetheless stare at how the pale skin contrasted sharply with the black clothes he would always wear, stare until the other caught him at it and growled at him to  _leave him the fuck alone_  or something along those lines.  
  
Badou did leave him alone but never really took Haine seriously when he threatened him, at least, not until he saw him lose his mind in a gunfight they got caught in. When the whole thing was over, Haine came over to where Badou had been hiding and snarled at him, an inhuman sound. His expression, his behaviour; everything about him at that moment was inhuman. Seeing him walk around despite his bullet-ridden body, despite all the blood he was losing, seeing him surrounded by a dozen mutilated bodies... Badou thought he was going to die too.  
  
But he didn’t. Instead, Badou found himself running through the streets with the albino on his back, his blood soaking through Badou's clothes, chilling his spine and making him run faster. By the time he got to the church, Haine had lost consciousness. Bishop had led them into a sort of medical room, started stripping the boy and cleaning him as well as he could. He checked the wounds for bullets and removed the ones he found (Badou still remembers the loud clinks they made when they hit the metal plate). Meanwhile, Badou stood there, mind still swimming from shock and fear and adrenalin and maybe some frustration too.  
  
There he was: a bloody, one-eyed, exhausted eighteen year old who had seen too much and understood too little of it. In the end, he passed out, his last thought being  _‘I need a smoke’_  before he hit the floor.  
  
When he woke up again, Haine was gone, his bed all bloody and messy. For a moment, Badou feared he might have brought him back too late, his injuries too grave. He violently shook the nasty thought from his head. After jumping back into his freshly washed clothes, he quickly but quietly made his way upstairs, only to be met by the blond priest.  
  
“Where’s Haine?” Badou had asked.  
  
In retrospect, his voice must have been shaking because the other smiled at him reassuringly, resting one hand on his shoulder.  
  
“Don’t worry, he’s fine.” He then waved toward a door at the back of the church, “You can join him and have some breakfast if you’d like.”  
  
In disbelief, Badou went to the kitchen, standing in the doorway in pure shock when he saw the albino without a scratch or bandage on him. That was the moment he learned that if he was going to stick with Haine, he would be the only one who would chronicle their battles through his scars.  
  
For a while, he hated him for it.  
  
Now, in the present, Haine traced over his scars with soft fingers, ghosting over muscle, eyes flickering between Badou’s face and the marks. The two were on the redhead’s couch, both shirtless in the summer heat. Badou laid stretched out with his eye closed, arms behind his head, while the albino sat astride his hips. The apartment was quiet, offering a rare moment of peace in between all the fighting.  
  
“What’s this one?” Haine asked, looking at a crooked gash just under the redhead's right pectoral.  
  
“Which?” Badou said around his cigarette.  
  
“This.” Haine poked the scar.  
  
Badou squirmed a little before answering, “I hit the concrete none too nicely during one of my investigations. My camera broke and a piece cut into me.” He took a puff before adding, “Fortunately, the film survived.”  
  
“And this one?”  
  
The other smiled around his cigarette when he felt the fingers press against a small cut on his abdomen, “That’s when some fucker kicked me in the gut and you shot him in the head. Twice.”  
  
“Wasn’t that a couple of weeks ago?”  
  
“Yeah well, I don’t heal like you.” The redhead replied, then pinched Haine’s leg, “Creep.”  
  
The albino snorted and swatted his hand away, his eyes already tracing another faded scar near Badou’s navel. After a few minutes, he spoke again though quietly, almost absent-mindedly, “Scars are a sign of strength, y’know? A sign of suffering. They’re marks the world places on you that prove you’re alive. Does that mean I’m not... alive?”  
  
Badou knew where this train of thought was going. He sat up, startling the other a little, and put out his cigarette in the nearby tray before caressing Haine’s cheek.  
  
“It’s not like you ain’t got scars of your own.” His hand slid down to his partner’s neck, his fingers feeling the metallic collar even through the bandages, “Except yours are deeper than any of mine put together.”  
  
Haine leaned into the hand that returned to his cheek, closing his eyes and letting out a small sigh. Badou took the opportunity to lay a kiss on his lips; a gentle, innocent touch. It was the gunner that leaned closer and demanded more, hands trailing over the other’s chest before coming to rest on his shoulders.  
  
“Besides...” Said Badou after pulling back, “My scars make me look badass. If you were covered in scars, I’d be fucking terrified of ya.”  
  
Haine looked at him in disbelief before laughing softly. Badou was surprised; he rarely heard the albino laugh, let alone a normal, non-psychotic one. He drank in the sound and, when it quietened, he kissed the lips whence it came.  
  
“No, seriously. I’d drop dead from fear.” He added afterwards.  
  
“Fuck you man.” Haine snorted, a small smile still tugging the corner of his lips.  
  
“You’d frighten the devil himself!” The redhead laughed.  
  
“Badou!”  
  
“I can see the big bad demon now, running away with his tail between his legs!”  
  
The two of them ended up wrestling and teasing each other up a good while before things quieted down again. Haine returned to Badou’s scars, fingers lightly tracing all the ones he found, while Badou lit another cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling. The rest of the afternoon quickly turned into a lazy evening and, for that brief moment when a few stars managed to pierce the dark night sky and a light breeze stirred the curtains, there was peace.


End file.
